Bread for the World

Bread for the World is a non-partisan, Christian citizens' movement in the United States to end hunger. The organization describes itself as a collective Christian voice urging nation's decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. By changing policies, programs, and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist, it provides help and opportunity far beyond the communities in which they live.

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In October 1972, a small group of Catholics and Protestants met to reflect on how persons of faith could be mobilized to influence U.S. policies that address the causes of hunger. Under the leadership of the Reverend Arthur Simon, the group began to test the idea in the spring of 1974. By year's end, more than 500 people had joined the ranks of Bread for the World as citizen advocates for hungry people.

In September 1991, the Reverend David Beckmann succeeded Simon as president.[1]

Bread for the World is a founding member of The ONE Campaign—a movement to rally Americans to respond to the global emergencies of extreme poverty, hunger and AIDS.

Each year, Bread for the World invites churches across the country to take up a nationwide Offering of Letters to Congress on an issue that is important to hungry people. Since 1974 the Offering of Letters campaign has focused on a different hunger issue each year; 2007's campaign was called Seeds of Change: Help Farmers End Hunger and aimed to provoke the reform of the U.S. Farm Bill.